Burnout
by rosiethero
Summary: A mission goes bad for a new team member, and Toris does his best to make sure everyone's okay. Superhero!AU, LietPol that could be seen as either romance or friendship, non-graphic mentions of violence, tons of other references to pre-existing superheroes.


**I've got a lot of ideas for a Superhero!AU but this is all I've manged to write so far. There's some implied backstory, but nothing's really concrete. Notes on characters' powers and abilities at the end.**

* * *

"How's Feliks doing?"

"I was just about to go see him." Toris raised an eyebrow at his team mate. "What about you, though?"

Eduard sighed in annoyance, placing his pliers down on the table. "I just managed to get the medical team to leave me alone, I don't need you smothering me, either."

"Are you sure?" Toris pressed. "You were so close to the blast. Maybe we should contact Arthur, he might know a healing spell-"

"Pardon my interruption," Kiku piped up. "But what Eduard needs right now is an engineer, not a sorcerer."

"But-"

"Look," Eduard interrupted, turning his chair around with his remaining leg. "Most of the explosion hit my robotic components. Any burns I got to my skin are minor. I'm damaged, but it's not unfixable. Besides," he gestured across the workbench. "Kiku's robot and my tech use very similar designs. With his help, I'll be back at peak efficiency within a few days."

Toris's eyes dropped to Eduard's defective arm, resting on the table while Kiku stripped it of its damaged wires, and his half-melted leg, detached and propped against the table. The metal was blackened and warped by heat, but it was still just metal.

"You should go see Feliks," Kiku added. "I think you visiting would help him a lot right now."

"Alright," Toris conceded. "But keep me updated, okay?"

"Yes, of course," Eduard responded vaguely, already turned back to the bench and focused on dismantling his own wrist.

Kiku gave a look that Toris assumed was either comforting or chastising. He could never tell with Kiku.

The containment room was an enormous, sound-proof chamber located outside the perimeter of the main base, several floors underground. It was typically kept for especially dangerous or powerful criminals, with advanced technological and mystical security measures placed upon it. Eduard and Arthur had spent months setting everything up so it would be virtually impossible to break out of. Every member of the team had tried and for each successful escape, a new measure was put in place until none of them were able to break out. For now, though, it was the only place Feliks could stay without hurting anyone while he simmered down. After the initial explosion, he'd flown back to the base and shut himself in there, not letting anyone into the guard room for hours

The long walk downstairs gave Toris time to think, time to try and figure out what, if anything, he could say to make Feliks feel better about what happened.

When he opened the door to the containment room, the first thing that hit him was the heat. The room was saturated in it, not enough to be dangerous, but enough to feel like an uncomfortably warm summer's day.

Alfred was seated at the guard's table, facing the single, large glass window to the containment room. His long coat was slung over the back of his chair and his hat rested on the table beside his card game. He'd entered the guard chamber as soon as Feliks had been willing to let anyone else in with him and, despite the sweat pouring down his face and the multitude of water bottles by his feet, he hadn't moved since.

He looked up once Toris entered and managed to smile even with the suffocating atmosphere. "How you doin'?"

"Alright," Toris answered. "You're the one who's been sitting in this heat for the past few hours, though."

"I'm from Texas, I can deal with it," Alfred drawled, leaning back in his chair. "'Sides, we opened up the ventilation system to pump all the hot air out. Ed okay?"

"He says repairs won't take long, and he wasn't physically injured."

"That's good to hear."

Toris glanced up and down Alfred's body. "Where's your belt?"

"Feliks didn't want any gunpowder near him," Alfred explained. "Said he was worried the heat'd set it off."

"Can that happen?" Toris asked.

"Haven't ever seen it before," Alfred responded. "But no sense in makin' the poor guy worry any more than he has to."

They lapsed into silence, and Toris looked over at the viewing glass. A steady, pale yellow glow beamed out of the containment room, radiating out from the hunched, white hot figure in the far corner. The figure and the walls wavered in the heat, and Toris had to wonder just how much of the heat the glass was holding back. He noticed something.

"Where's the bed?"

"Incinerated the second he shut himself in here," Alfred said, picking up a new water bottle and opening it. "Not even any ashes left."

Toris frowned. Maybe he should call Arthur, get him to charm a bed to be heat-proof so Feliks at least had somewhere comfortable to sleep if this happened again.

"He's cooled down a lot since he first got back, though," Alfred went on after taking a sip. "I reckon he'll have burned himself out by tomorrow. Still, too dangerous to go in there without any sort of protection."

Toris thought for a moment. "Do you think I could go in?"

Alfred looked at him, a little surprised, but seemed to give the idea some consideration.

"You could, I guess. I figure if anyone could survive that heat without some kinda super suit it'd be you."

"I'm going in, then," Toris said.

Alfred shrugged and pressed the intercom button. "Feliks, ya got company."

Toris heard the surprised "What!?" before the speaker shut out and saw the burning figure jerk suddenly. As he approached the chamber door at the far end of the room, he could see the figure stand up and begin gesturing wildly, but could no longer hear anything.

As he stood before the door, he felt the familiar cooling sensation spread across his body as his skin shifted and stiffened, turning from pale peach to a shining, dark grey. Fully transformed, he nodded to Alfred, who hit another button and the heavy door slid open.

Toris had no idea how bad the heat was inside the room compared to outside; he couldn't feel anything like this. In the far corner of the room, Feliks, still shouting at Alfred to keep the door shut, suddenly fell silent and stared as Toris stepped inside, the door closing behind him.

"You shouldn't have come in," Feliks said desperately, pushing himself back into the corner. "I'm gonna hurt you, you shouldn't–"

"I'll be fine," Toris interrupted, calmly stepping forward. "And so will Eduard and no one else was seriously injured. Everyone's going to be fine, Feliks."

With a little whimper, Feliks sank to the floor, arms around his knees and Toris picked up his pace.

"I should just stay in here forever. I could have killed someone." Feliks moaned lowly, burying his face in his arms. "Oh my god Toris, someone could have _died!"_

"But no one _did,"_ Toris said firmly, reaching Feliks and kneeling beside him. "Listen, you're new at this, we all make mistakes as we learn to use our powers."

"I'll bet none of you blew up a building," Feliks mumbled dryly.

"Well, no, but we can still learn from this," Toris persisted, wishing Feliks would just look at him. "Now we know you need to burn off some energy every so often. We can heat-proof the training room, or you can just come in here and flare up for a while."

"But what if I hurt someone else?" Feliks asked, voice cracking. Toris wondered if he was crying, but he had no liquid in his body to form tears. "What if I hurt_ you?"_

He looked up and Toris saw the face of his dear old friend, his eyes blank with white light but still so expressive, as much as they were before he could blaze through space to the sun and back, before Toris could punch through steel and take bullets without even a scratch.

He reached out and, before Feliks could pull away, gently rested his hand on the other's shoulder. Feliks winced and looked at his hand, than back at his face, as if just waiting for Toris to scream in agony and pull away. Toris kept his hand firmly where he placed it, solid, strong, and unfeeling.

"You won't," he said simply. "I promise."

* * *

**Characters' names and powers:**

**Lithuania - "Iron Wolf," can turn his flesh into an indestructable, metallic substance, inspiration from Colossus (X-Men, Marvel) and the Iron Wolf Legend.**

**Estonia - No name yet, cyborg and tech genius, super-high IQ, various electronic based weapons, inspiration from canon interests.**

**England - "Pendragon," immortal sorceror trained by Merlin, draws power from mythical familiars, inspiration from Dr. Strange (Marvel), Etrigan the Demon (DC Comics), and British mythology.**

**Japan - No name yet, pilots a transforming mech-suit, inspiration from the entire giant-fighting-robot genre of anime.**

**America - "Gunslinger," cowboy motif, wields an arsenal of gun-based weaponry, largely non-lethal, rides a high-tech motor bike, inspiration from Vigilante (the Greg Saunders version) and Batman (both DC).**

**Poland - "Solar Flare," body is made up of pure solar energy, posses super strength and flight, inspiration from Red Star (Teen Titans - DC Comics), Captain Atom (DC Comics), the Human Torch (Fantastic 4 - Marvel), and the Phoenix as an unofficial symbol of Poland.**


End file.
